InsaneJournal

FIC: Of The, Remus/Sirius, WIP, Chapters 1 - 9/31
Author: Tarie
Title: Of The (1 - 9/31)
Summary: This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Word Count: approximately 8,000
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters and universe are property of JKR, Scholastic & other assorted publishers, and the WB.
Notes: Summary is a Winston Churchill quote. This was written for blanketforts in January 2006. There will be 31 chapters total. Chapters 1 - 9 appear here. I will finish this fic hopefully by the end of the 07-08 school year. If you read, please let me know what you think because I rarely write Remus/Sirius and I deliberately joined this community to challenge myself. The fic does not appear in chronological order. It begins at the end and will end at the beginning. Once the fic is complete, I will have it beta'd properly and post the revised version.


xxxi.

"What is this?" he asks.

"Don't be a tit, Moony," Sirius laughs.

"Don't be a tit."

"It's a Cauldron Maker. Pint of ale, nip of Firewhisky. Afraid it's too fucking manly for you?" There it is again, laughter loud and barking and free, and he can see the chord of Sirius's neck stand out, beckoning, when he throws his head back.

Remus's lips purse. "You will not bully me into drinking by making ill attempts at insulting my masculinity, Sirius."

"Sodding knobhead." Sirius smirks.

He drinks.

He drinks. Sirius drinks. They drink.

They spill Cauldron Makers on their jumpers but forget about spelling them clean. They wear their alcohol-soaked jumpers everywhere: on the Knight Bus, to that one Muggle pub - or was it four Muggle pubs?, at Leaky Cauldron, on a last-minute trek to Honeydukes to nick sweeties for pre-midnight snacks. Chocolate goes well with alcohol, Sirius says. Remus tosses several Sickles and a gleaming gold Galleon on the counter. When they take a break in the tunnel on the way back to Hogwarts, Sirius says Remus left too much money. Remus says it's the holiday and he ought to be charitable. Even though I can't afford to be, he neglects to add. You're a fucking sap, Sirius says.

Instead of returning to Gryffindor, Sirius and Remus take their damp jumpers out to the beech tree under which most Marauder Pranks are conceived, where they lie on their backs and point at the stars. Remus is too pissed to know the difference between the Little Dipper and Orion's belt, while Sirius can still pick them out of the sky, even when the dull haze of alcohol has enveloped him. Remus always has to revise more than Sirius and James, and he vaguely, sourly, knackeredly remembers this just as he feels himself drifting off to sleep. Sirius is next to him, their shoulders press against one another, and Remus mumblemoans as a charmed-warm cloak - Sirius's - is settled over him. It's warm and--

"S'nearly midnight," Says Sirius, his knee bumping against Remus's. Remus sits up and

Refill. He drinks again.

looks at Sirius with wide, worried eyes. "I have--"

"Don't," Sirius says, holding up a hand, "tell me you have to do some prefect patrolling shite. It's the bloody holiday, Moony. Even old McGonagall's letting her hair down, so why don't you take off your net and untwist your knickers, eh?"

He is drifting, drifting off now, slow muted wash of fact and fiction and now and then engulfing mind, body, soul.

Sleep.

"You're pissed," Remus says flatly.

"Yeah," Sirius says hoarsely, and his hand is suddenly on Remus's jumper. His touch, for some reason - not that there needs to be one when one is more than a tad imbibed - makes Remus's eyes water. Remus's eyes water and his nerves stand on edge, especially those just beneath Sirius's hand. He is alive, electric, thrumming, and, "Fuck."

So Sirius.

"Beg your--" Remus starts.

"Fucking-- Moony," Sirius says in that same hoarse voice, his eyes downcast and Remus feels like Messiah, respected and magnificent and safe and saving.

A thumb traces the arch of a brow as shuddering breath rolls off his lips; he can practically taste Sirius, and Remus shakes.

Remus shakes, Sirius moves, and their lips meet like old friends, warm and gentle - how do you do - and familiar. Taste ale and whisky red and gold, fingers chilled pinky-pale from the snow, Warming Charm long gone but bodies more than warm enough, touching cheeks and temples and throats. They ring in the new year like this, doing this, gasping and needing this.

"Christ," Sirius murmurs as Remus pulls back for air.

Christ.

Remus can barely sit up, head pounding thumping splitting in two. Two two two no more. Certainly not two glasses on the table two bottles on the floor.

Excess is everywhere, save for the lone number struggling to move in the bed.

Remus had rang in the New Year gasping and needing, but knowing it would never be again.

New Year new beginning or end.

Sirius had ended.


xxi.

"My head," Remus mutters, arm flinging about his eyes to block the sunlight out.

"I told you I'd come round," says Sirius. "So I'm round." Lips curve wickedly. "I've come."

"Disgusting." The word itself is lost, muffled against skin muscle bone of arm, but Sirius is particularly skilled in translating Moony mumbling.

"Ah, but you love me," Sirius puffs his chest, bounces up down up down on the edge of the four-poster, takes in the swelling on Lupin's head. "I spy a Moony lump," he crows. "Pub brawl? I'm fucking sorry I missed that little show. Would've snorted my pint right out my conk had I seen it."

Of course it wouldn't have been a brawl; Remus is too straight-laced, too well-mannered, too 'pardon me ma'am and Bob's your uncle' to cross his peepers at a stranger, let along allow himself to sink to fisticuffs. The mental image is dead amusing, though, and Sirius chortles.

"Door was locked," Mumbles muffles, Sirius rolls his eyes.

"Sodding Unlocking Charm, twit."

"Muggle area, Sirius. Whenever will you learn?" Remus's arm falls on the duvet, and then he rolls to his side, presenting his back to Sirius.

"Fuck you, Moony," Sirius says, eyes hardening, following curve of spine to dip of waist to curve of arse, something in him stirring. "Why d'you stay in this shit-hole?"

"It isn't a shit-hole," Remus says in the tone of a person reciting something for the one-hundred-eleventh time. "It's a perfectly acceptable flat, it allows me to live within my means, it--"

"It's a shit-hole." The edge in his voice surprises even himself. "Shit. Hole. Remus. And don't you dare try to sell me that sickly sweet 'within my means' tripe, either. You know you can live with me. Fuck, but Uncle Alphie's gold got me more room than I can spare and--"

"I don't want your charity." Remus is now a wee little ball on the duvet and Sirius's temperature rises.

"You fucking plonker," he growls, launching sneer and life and limb atop him. "Charity? Is that what you bloody think? Was it charity all this time with me 'n Prongsy 'n Pete hanging about you, not caring that every full moon you turn into a beastie who could rip our sodding heads off and use 'em for Quaffles? Was it charity that I- that we- FUCK YOU, LUPIN," Sirius snarls in his ear, thighs straddling thighs, hands untender on flesh most tender. Whispering now. "Fuck you, daft dick." Beneath him Remus chokes, says something, snuffles his head into the duvet. "What? What was that?"

A thin, spindly hand pushes at his thigh. Sirius slaps it away. "Say it," he breathes against the shell of Remus's ear, the answering shudder going straight to places with which he shouldn't be concerned right now. But he's nineteen, so those places are always something to be concerned about.

Remus lifts his face from the duvet, staring at the far wall. "It wasn't a pub brawl."

Sirius lets up a bit. "Well?"

"It was Them."

Brow furrows. "Them?"

"Them," Remus intones, and Sirius gets the distinct feeling Remus is floating away from himself. "Them. From Daily Prophet. The Exterminators."

"No." Sirius lets out a breath as Remus sucks a raggedy one in. "Fucking bastards."

"Go home, Padfoot."

"I will not." He will not leave Remus. To leave is to abandon, to abandon is to destroy, and there will be no destruction here. Here is Remus, in his shabby shit-hole of a flat, eyes grey gloaming gloom and bones too brittlefragile to withstand transformation after transformation but do. He wouldn't ever tell Remus this because Remus would take it the wrong way, take offence, tuck into himself, and Sirius would be fucked if he did that. It took enough to get him to open trust feel in the first place. "Get under here." Sirius pulls back duvet, blankets, sheets for Remus to crawl under.

That is that, then, and Remus is enfolded in clean-cool sheets, nubby blankets, and thick duvet while Sirius studies him, his back against a solid oak post.

Fucking hell, but if Remus isn't lucky to be alive.

Remus is lucky to be alive and Sirius believes in luck as surely as he believes in love. Love with her fickle fortune, love with her gentleness and warmth, love with her razor-sharp teeth and ravenous appetite. This sort of thing, if he could call it that, is - Is? What is 'is'? - pain and edges and salient and longing. Oh, how it is longing, and how Sirius longs, in his heart, in his mind, in his spirit, in his flesh, the greedy bastard. Sirius believes in love, oh yes, and he craves her warm torture just as surely as he craves

This

This mouth these lips these teeth this tongue this desire. Sirius craves and satiates himself, taking taking taking while Remus, groggy and giving, provides what he needs because he needs it himself. The taking and the providing is rough-ready and Sirius's cheeks are wet.

If you weren't lucky, Sirius thinks, pulling back to brush at a sign of something he doesn't want seen. If you weren't lucky.

He sits up, trembling, focussing on the shining shaggy brown hair feathered out on the pillow, seeing right through it.

Luck.

"Fuck."


xxiv.

"Don't," says Regulus, all dark and lithe and gypsy mystique, with eyes like uncut onyx and mouth wicked wet with secrets, leaning against the door as though he's blocking the way out his fucking cell so Saviour Sirius can't save the sodding day.

"Shut up and listen. Christ," Sirius snaps, flipping the still-smouldering butt of his cigarette end-over-end at Regulus. "It isn't too late."

"It is." Regulus catches the butt in the palm of his hand, dropping it to the ground, stamping it out. He looks away and Sirius wants to scream, so he screams.

"Christ," he roars, moving lunging pinning Regulus to the door, hand on either side of his face trapping him there, keeping him there, suspending time for even the briefest of moments perhaps because Sirius knows. Sirius knows and yet he denies the knowledge, the notion, the image in his mind of brother once had brother lost brother gone forever. "It isn't too late and don't you fucking say it again. I'm your fucking brother, you fuck, and I'm trying to help you." Breath comes quick like death and judgement, each inhalation and exhalation recycling, rejecting, recycling, rejecting spirit and essence and Sirius wants to out those sharp, dark accusing eyes himself because he feels lost drowning dying dead.

"Don't push me. I know what I'm doing," Regulus chokes, and Sirius is shocked, so shocked at how hollow and broken and void he is.

He steps away, but not before ghosting his fingers over twisted skull and snake branding his brother a fool. "So do it."

*~*~*~*~*~*

"What?"

Remus winces, refusing to meet his eyes and it hacks him the merry fuck off.

"WHAT?" Sirius explodes, turning away from Moony to pound his fists against the already-beaten keyboard, ivories and ebonies long ago splintered and spitting everywhere, a loud discordant sound rising in the air, grating and wailing and taunting like some sly malevolent spirit.

"They found his body in Ilfracombe," Remus says quietly, and Sirius laughs.

"Ilfracombe. He's never liked Ilfracombe. Sorry sod's thought ever since he was a babby that a dragon'd carry him off too one day if Mother made us go there for holiday."

"Did you hear me, Sirius?"

There is a hand on his shoulder, long-fingered slight light comfort, and Sirius doesn't want it. Doesn't need it. He laughs again because he cannot think of anything to do - I don't know what I'm doing. - and he laughs long and hard, starting low deep down in the belly up through the diaphragm out the lungs shoulders jiggling wracking carrying the burden carrying the weight and oh God--

The floor fucking hurts when his knees hit the boards, old splintery and rotting.

"Dearborn found him on the wayside. In the snow."

"Face-up?" Sirius manages, voice wavering, eyes closing.

"Face-up."

He exhales slowly. Regulus having been found face-up meant he died a fair death, died defending himself, died trying, died doing.

Sirius can picture his brother plainly, aged six, lying in the snow, face glowing flushed-pink-promises, standing out against the stark white powder. He likes to imagine that this is how Regulus looked when Dearborn found him on the wayside. Had. Lost. Gone. Dead.

"Oh fucking Christ. Oh fucking Christ."

Taking that dead nasty Skele-Gro shit is cake compared to the pain racing through veins nerves essence to every last part of him. It's as though one of those fucking cowardly Death Eaters is killing each of his organs one-by-one, burning him alive from the inside, splintering his bones, drawing and quartering and filleting and erasing him all at once.

He tried he tried he tried he failed, oh, he failed, Reg is dead, and Remus's hands on his shoulders, on his face, sicken him.

"Stopstopstop leave me BE let me AT THEM oh--" Up is down down is up north west south east directionless leaden feet root to floor while gentle hands soothe heated skin.

There aren't any words, none that he can hear save for the imprints of words and folly and misguided youth branded on his brain and Remus comforts, fingers and mouth and arms moving, touching, calming until cries Sirius didn't know he had been making still with the ticking of time.

Oh, time.


viii.

"Blind!" gasps Sirius, screwing his eyes shut against the offending glaringly white-bright sunlight suddenly streaming invading bursting through a gap in the curtains of his four-poster. "Fucking blind! For the love of-- Moony!"

"Sorry about that," says Remus, but Sirius doesn't think he sounds sorry at all, the prick.

A rustling of fabric and an "It's fine now, Sirius" aren't enough to make him open his eyes. He's irked as Remus has woken him from a peaceful slumber, during which he'd been having the most excellent dream about being in the middle of a Remus Lupin-Catriona McCormack sandwich whilst Merlin and Grindelwald took notes on his sexual prowess. The likelihood, of course, of this dream ever becoming reality - as Merlin and likely wouldn't have got on well, McCormack is a bird and he hasn't an interest in such creatures, and he wouldn't ever share Remus with anyone - is nil. Not that he's actually had Remus. Not yet. They've snogged some and groped bits over clothing, but there hasn't been time for anything else. Or privacy. Post-New Years was brilliant and short-lived; James, Peter, and the rest of the lot returned from holiday before-- Well, it wasn't as though he had been wanting to sit Remus down to have a sodding talk about 'oh dear, whatever are we now' like they were a pair of pansies in a fucking pink pot. He'd just sort of wanted to... Christ, he just wanted to get some sort of confirmation from Remus that they weren't just faffing about and wasting time. It never happened, though, and they haven't had time alone since school resumed.

The mattress dips beneath him, shaking as another body settles atop it. Sirius still doesn't open his eyes. He shifts, pressing shoulder blades down hard, spine arching up up up till he can hearfeel the cracking of his vertebrae as they snap into place, sending a sharp hot pleasurepain up down out.

"There are better ways than that to alleviate the pressure in your spine," says Remus quietly.

Sirius snorts. "Fucking right there are," he says, opening his eyes, propping himself up on his shoulders to leer at Remus. As expected, colour blooms in his cheeks and he won't look Sirius in the eye.

"Peter has detention with Professor Slughorn and James is in the library," Remus volunteers, and Sirius gets the distinct impression that Remus is staring at a spot on his shoulder.

Good old Pete. Blew up a cauldron in the first day of class after holiday, earning his sorry arse Saturday detention for a bleeding month. As for James... "You forgot to add the part about him trying to get a look-see up Evans's skirt while he's pretending to revise...in the library."

"Yes, well," says Remus mildly, his face becoming more flushed. "There is that."

"Yes," Sirius agrees. "There is that." Then: "Fuck me! It's colder than a witch's tit in here!"

And it is. Shit, how'd he manage to sleep in this icebox? He twists around, groping for his wand, but he can't find the damned thing; it must have rolled off the bed onto the floor while he'd been sleeping. "Remus, Warming Charm, for fuck's sakes!"

"You don't want me to do that."

"Yes I fucking do! My bollocks are going to shrivel up, freeze to fucking death, then fall off, and I rather don't fancy becoming a eunuch!"

"The window is open because James spilt a phial of cologne he'd brewed. We got the stain out of the rug with a few Cleaning Charms, but the smell won't go away; the room needs to be aired out."

Fucking James and his goddamned never-ending quest to impress Lily Evans. When is he ever going to learn that she isn't sodding interested?

"I'm gonna kill him," he mutters, reaching up to finish closing the four-poster curtains all the way. "Gonna take my shrivelled, frozen bollocks and make him bloody choke on them."

"Perhaps you might like some tea first," Remus suggests, conjuring a cup, steaming sweet orchid smells inviting comforting calming.

Inhaling the aroma, the irritation that had begun to boil over quickly cools, soothed. Yes, before he does anything, be it kill James or drag his arse out of bed or become Minister for Magic, not necessarily in that order, Sirius would quite like to have some tea.

Ruddy Remus. Knows him too fucking well for his own good.

"Thanks," he murmurs, fingers fitting curling owning the cup and he drinks, hot liquid a lifeline and an anchor and a freedom all in one. It quells the chill in his bones and sets his mind at ease. He shares a comfortable silence with Remus, whom simply sits at the far end of the four-poster watching him.

"You're welcome." Remus's voice is soft and slow and his mouth is terribly, terribly kissable right now. Slightly chapped, so dry there's a split in the middle of the lower lip, a crumb of toast on one corner, and Sirius is incapable of containing himself. When Sirius wants - wants and will-haves and mines - he will not hesitate; he strikes, takes, claims, and this is precisely what he does now.

The last of the tea and the dredges slosh up the side of the cup as he slams it down on the bedside chair, but he pays the mess no mind because what's on his mind is Pete Prongsy gone just Remus alone us oh us-- and

Mouths collide, teeth click and clack, and there is a sigh - sign of contentment or invocation - oh God holy perfection yes - that is traded between lips and curled over tongues. He tastes Remus, buttery toast and yellow and practical, with white-pale pads of fingers skirting along soft inclines of each other's cheeks, nails scraping marking tagging and they aren't faffing about or wasting time anymore.

Sirius pulls back, gasping for air, sucking in a lungful and Remus's teeth, strong and white, nip at his lower lip - mother-- oh-- nngghhhh-- - and then sink down. They sink down and Sirius smells it. He smells the metal-sharp scent of blood, his, can picture what he looks like all milky-white with deep crimson rivulet of life lust being trickling down his chin and fuck if he wouldn't love it if--

Remus laughs, a gentle, bemused, 'dear me' sort of laugh and Sirius moans, head falling back. Head falls back, trickle trickle drip of wet warmth down the chin and then it's gone, replaced with something even warmer and wetter and broader and more sure. Sirius picks his head up in time to see Remus licking his lips. "Fuck," he breathes, eyes rounding, pyjama bottoms uncomfortable, and world quickly beginning to spin out of control. "Moony," he swallows, fingers hooking in the waistband of Remus's trousers, pulling dragging yanking fabric, trousers and pants both, down. Palm slides up over thigh, moving back to grab Remus's bum, then they're twisting and rolling until Sirius is on top and Remus is staring up at him with that ever-so-fucking-patient look of his, though his eyes are lazy and his breathing is laboured, and Sirius thinks he could die right here and now and have died the most spectacular fucking death ever.

"You," Remus whispers, arching up against and into him as though he just can't sodding help himself, as though he'll die without the contact, and Sirius is dizzy and surely dying now.

"I just-- just-- fuck," he tries, fingers feathering up and down along the crease between hip and leg. "Moony, I'm gonna--"

"So do it," Remus rasps, and Sirius falls apart.

Sirius falls apart and falls down and opens up, tongue dragging over salty-hot skin, heart hammering in time with the oh oh ohs spilling forth from Remus's mouth like prayers and he worships. He worships and he pays homage with every swipe of tongue over the head of Remus's cock, with every pulse of the underside's vein thrumming against his working tongue, with every swirl and increase-decrease-increase of suction, with every fibre of his being.

The taste in his mouth isn't as tart as the Blood or heavy like the Body but it's one and the same and better, Remus and completion and us. As the taste fills the welcoming cavern of his mouth with each jerkthrustshudder of Remus beneath him, Sirius says a prayer for the dying.

For himself.


xvi.

"Ah, here we are," says Remus, so full of cheer and broad smiles and excitement that it's a wonder he can contain it all. Sirius wouldn't be surprised if his head pops right off and splatters all about the welcome mat right here and now in front of his new flat.

"You sure this is the place, Moony?" Remus certainly has talked this place up, but...there has to be some sort of mistake. The paint on the door is chipped and peeling, the knocker is askew, the windows are grimy, and the location itself is decidedly Muggle.

"Of course I'm sure." Sirius watches as he digs a key out of his pocket. It's big and brass, with a skull on the end, and Sirius thinks that Muggles just might be more cracked than he'd previously figured. A turn of the key, a twist of the knob, and the door swings inward. Remus waves him inside wearing a more subdued, shyly anxious expression.

Reminding himself that he's not going to be an arse and ruin today, Remus's day, Sirius offers him a grin and starts through the door.

"Wait!"

Remus's fingers curl around his bicep and Sirius stops, halfway through the threshold, looking at him questioningly.

"Wellies off." Remus gestures toward the welcoming mat with a sheepish smile. "If you don't mind...."

Sirius returns the smile, stepping back out onto the stoop to pull off his wellies. As soon as they're in a heap on the mat, melting snow slips down along the rubber, over the heel, over the vamp, over the toe box, a puddle forming under them. "Better here than all over your new carpet, eh?" Sirius says lightly, clapping a hand on Remus's shoulder before making his way inside. He doesn't get very far before he stops and his heart sinks.

The entrance hall is a disaster. That's the only way to describe it, really. Wallpaper is torn and hanging off the walls in some places, the carpet is threadbare, and in spots where the carpet is particularly nonexistent Sirius can see rotting floorboards.

Oh, Moony.

Remus's hand is at the small of his back suddenly, a light, familiar presence, and he presses slightly, urging Sirius forward. While Sirius doesn't want to see more, he knows he must, he has to for Remus's sake, and he ought to put on his most pleasant mask this very second before Remus suspects something is amiss.

They turn to the left, entering the drawing room, and Sirius can't do this. It's fucking demeaning for Remus have to live here, that's what it is. Judging from the exterior, the entrance hall, and this drawing room, Sirius discerns that the rest looks just as good, which is to say really fucking awful, thanks.

Yes, Remus won't really be able to find steady work on account of that pesky little once a month bloodthirsty creature of doom thing and will be living on a shoestring budget, but bloody Christing hell! This flat isn't good enough for a doxie to infest, that's how dreadful it is!

The walls aren't just losing bits of paper in here; they're losing plaster as well. There are holes in the walls, paper and glue and plaster completely worn away, the wooden structure underneath completely visible. In the places where the paper is still afixed to plaster run many long cracks, a good number of them with thin, miniscule spidery veins moving out, seeking to round the circumference of the room. The floor was a tad better than it was in the entrance hall, but the furniture is so very atrocious that Sirius barely makes note of it. Settee threadbare with stuffing leaking out at the seams, table with mismatched (and wobbly) legs, bookshelf with shelves that bow in the middle.... This isn't any place for Remus. Sirius doesn't give a flying shrivelfig if it's economical or not for Remus to live here; it's a fucking shit hole and Remus is better than this.

There is a dull ache in his chest and, when Remus removes his hand from the small of Sirius's back, he has to grit his teeth to deter himself from ranting and railing at Remus regarding his crummy flat.

"I know it isn't much," Remus starts, clasping his hands in front of himself. He ducks his head and a shock of brown hair, mousy and dull and perfect, falls in his eyes. "But it's a start, Sirius. A real start."

"It's...something," Sirius allows, leaning over, twisting to peer up into Remus's eyes. "Did your mum and da help you pick it out?"

Remus freezes for the briefest of moments, then crosses to the window, fingers curling over the sill. "No. I did it on my own - searched, toured, signed the paperwork, paid for it. Everything."

Remus has paid for his own flat without the help of his parents.

That's the most important thing Sirius takes away from this little exchange and the ache in his chest isn't dull anymore. It's sharp and searing and severe. Remus, who barely has two sickles to rub together, is paying for this flat on his own. Remus, who doesn't know when or where or even if he'll ever get a job, is paying for this flat on his own. Remus, who is wise and gentle and decent, is paying for this shit hole flat on his own. Dear God.

"So," Remus says, his smile wavering. "What do you think, Padfoot?"

I think it's crap. You deserve better. Is this the best you could find? Why don't you move in with James? With Peter? For fuck's sakes, why don't you move in with me? Why here? Why with Muggles?

Sirius knows that even if Remus could afford a better place he would still have chosen this flat. Ever since they met, Remus has been the different one, unlike the rest of the Marauders. This is his way of remaining different, but Sirius thinks it's also his way of holding himself back. Always afraid - or unwilling - to feel touch taste be live, Remus. Unwilling.

That is Remus. Unwilling.

Unwilling to see, to believe, to trust. To trust in himself.

Sirius trusts in Remus enough for the both of them, but that isn't the point.

He cannot lie to Remus. He never could. He cannot lie, so he answers Remus's question with his own earlier statement. "It's a start."

While Remus is starting, Sirius will keep on trusting.

He'll keep on believing.


xxvii.

He is dead. Surely dead.

Blackness surrounds him, heavy and inky and thick, envelopes him, invades him. Owns him.

Can't think can't feel can't hope can't remember.

Can't do anything save for nothing at all.

Nothing becomes something when They glide past him. Back and forth They glide, They hover, They keep, and he is dead. Surely dead.

Sirius is dead and these things - They - are Charon but he hasn't an obolus to pay - Pay? Pay? However can he possibly pay for what he has done? - passage. He hasn't an obolus, thus he is doomed to stay Here.

Here.

Here with They and their shadows of fabric and greed and need, here with They and their punishment of horror and cold and loss. If he had but a wand, he would conjure an obolus to pay his fee so that he would be free far gone only--

No, he wouldn't conjure. He wouldn't.

Deserving of this. He is.

He is deserving and he isn't...

It occurs to Sirius, somewhere between the absence of light and the hunger for...something...that he isn't dead.

Were he dead, he wouldn't be aware that he can't think, can't feel, can't hope, can't remember.

Remember.

"'Pray you love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.'"

Oh.

A voice soft and lilting and patient. His.

"Pray you love, pay sodding attention. There is a pansy, and I'd like to fucking pluck it right now."

A voice loud and leering and impatient. His own.

He hears and he remembers.

Muggle books and operas and fires and tea and him, all lean and lost and his.

"Remus." His voice is raspy and thin from disuse but it feels good, so good, to speak, to hear something besides the black, to form a word with lips teeth tongue effort.

It feels good to remember.

Does Remus remember?

He doesn't know. Can't know.

If Remus does remember, would it be only of what happened That Night?

Probably so and oh.

A killer of kind, forever marked as a Betrayer of Brothers...

Death may be kinder than life.

Hand scrabbles across dirt floor until fingers clasp around something small cold round hard - a stone - and he scrambles to a stand.

They glide past. He bangs on iron bars, bangs on iron bars with his obolus.

He bangs and bangs until They come. Until They feed. They ignore his passage fee and feed.

They feed and he screams.

Screams words that meant nothing once upon a time but now mean everything.

"'Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate.'"

He screams.

Then there is blackness.


ii.

"Sirius."

Sirius spins round, all smug satisfied smirking, and lifts a brow - ever so slight questioning curving polite - as he finds himself looking, as utterly expected, at a red-cheeked and slightly winded Remus Lupin.

"Oh, hullo there, Lupin," Sirius says cheerfully, biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing, laughing because it really is too easy, isn't it?

"The forest is off-limits to students," Remus says, brow furrowing.

"Is it now?" Sirius asks, ever the picture of bloody innocence. "I hadn't the foggiest."

What happens next, Sirius thinks, is brilliant.

Remus, pale peaky pinched little thing that he is, proceeds to do a variety of big things - big in the sense that Sirius is sure he will lock himself in the bath later and flog himself for allowing himself to - gasp! - get a wee bit out of control. He turns colour - red. His mouth gapes open soundlessly like a fish - a very large fish. He then finds a voice - most unlike his own - and summons up the courage cheek to give Sirius a rather sound scolding.

"It isn't proper to ignore school rules, Sirius! The headmaster has told us from the very first day that the forest is strictly forbidden and that we aren't to enter it, let alone go near it. If anyone sees you, you'll have lost even more house points for Gryffindor. Would you like to do that? To lose our house more points? Isn't it enough that James got docked fifty from Professor Slughorn last week, or that Peter got docked twenty from Madame Pince yesterday? Be a little responsible, please, Sirius!"

Well, Sirius probably would have found it to be a rather sound scolding had he not lost the battle with his will to remain aloof and burst out with laughter that had been a long time coming anyway.

"What," Remus says slowly, "is so very funny?"

Hand clutching his sides, Sirius gasps, "You're ignoring school rules as well, Remus."

Remus's eyes narrow for a moment, and then they round at the exact moment the realisation that yes, in fact he is ignoring school rules right this very moment hits him. Oh, but it's all so incredibly rich and Sirius can't help but to crow. "You are. You fucking are, Remus, right now so don't you deny it."

One of Remus's hands flops at his side like a fish brought forcibly out of water and left on the bank to flounder. The corners of Sirius's mouth twitch.

"Fine," he says, his head lowering. "I won't."

"Fucking right you won't," Sirius assures him, leaning back against a tree, bare branch of twisted gnarled sinister-looking brambles just overhead.

Remus lifts his chin and Sirius has to give the bloke credit for holding his gaze. Remus is far from the total sis Sirius had initially taken him far; the kid's got spirit, quiet and constant and true, at the core. "I won't," he repeats.

"What are you doing out here, Lupin?" Sirius asks, as if he doesn't bloody well know.

"Collecting you from the forest," Remus says, eyes rolling upward as he attempts to blow a few locks of mousy brown hair out of his eyes.

"Gonna put me in your pocket with the rest of your collection, eh?" Sirius grins, and the grin deepens when pink blooms on those peaky cheeks.

"You're not quite deserving enough to be immortalised on a chocolate frog card," Remus sniffs.

"One day I will be," Sirius says, all confident puffed-chest proud. "One day there won't be a witch or wizard who doesn't know my name."

"Yes, well," Remus says carefully and Sirius rolls his eyes.

"So, Remus," says Sirius abruptly, pushing himself off the tree so that he can stand toe-to-toe with his housemate. "Go on, then."

Remus's face is a sea of confusion and wonder-wrinkles. Sirius can't stand it, so he waves his hands wildly and barks, "Ask me what I'm doing out here, man!"

Comprehension washes over Remus's face and Sirius inwardly cringes. Lupin is a bright bloke, nearly as bright as James and him, but sometimes he lacks common sense, easily gets off track, lets his mind wander, or simply doesn't comprehend things. He's so slight and sad, too, and often sickly - or so it seems. Every month since they've been at Hogwarts together, Remus has managed to get violently ill and spent several days in the hospital wing all quarantined - or at least that's what old Pomfrey has said every time one of Remus's roommates has gone to look in after him. There's something just off about Remus and neither James or himself can figure it out. Peter has tossed out a few theories here and there during 'what's wrong with Remus' brainstorms, but the suggestions are just about as helpful as Pettigrew is sporty.

"Fine, Sirius." Remus shoves his hands in the pockets of his faded second-hand robes. "What are you doing out here in the forest?

"Why, Remus. I never thought you'd ask." Sirius slings an arm about Remus's shoulder and leads him down a misty path between a patch of tall, dark trees. Clutching Remus against him, Sirius can feel his smaller frame tense, but he doesn't let up his hold. "I came out here because I knew you'd follow me."

Remus stops short, shrugs his shoulders roughly, and ducks out from underneath Sirius's hold. "Why--"

You're not getting off so easily, Sirius thinks as he closes in on Remus, taking hold of him by fragile wrists, squeezing hard. "Tell me," Sirius pants, face screwing up in concentration as he fights off Remus's attempts to break free. "What happens to you? We know, Remus."

"N-nothing!"

"We're not daft! Why can't you just say it?!"

"There isn't anything to say!"

Sirius stops mid-shake to stare down into Remus's wide eyes - grey and stormy and sullen and sad - and releases his grip. Hands meet palm-to-palm and tip-to-tip and he can still feel Remus on him, under him. He was there - right there - and he felt-- he felt-- he felt Different. Different and Divine, somehow. And dangerous.

"You just don't want to say it." Two fingers tap against his mouth and then one. Shhh.

Remus says nothing.

"One day I'll say it for you," Sirius vows. "Then I'll know. We'll all know and you can't fucking hide anymore."

"I don't have anything to hide," Remus protests.

No, Sirius thinks. Only everything, apparently.



xxv.

Everything is nothing and nothing is what it seems and seemingly everything is bollocks. Bollixed up.

Fuck, but Sirius can't take this.

Sirius can't take this 'is it or isn't it' - And what the hell is It anymore? - one more day. He cannot do it and he will - will battle of the wills will not - not.

He hasn't come to this decision lightly. This is Moony. But this is also James and Lily and wee little Harry, and Sirius can't--

This is agony, pure primitive pain, in its rawest form. To essentially choose between his friends, to choose between his best mate and his lover--

Sirius is broken inside. Shattered. Shattered into shards that aren't quite sharp enough, that won't quite cut through the ache to stiffle it, and God how he wants to be stiffled.

Or saved.

Or both.

He had thought once that Remus was like Messiah, like Savior.

He isn't so sure anymore.

Remus is gone for long stretches at a time these days and no one - not anyone in the Order, not Peter or James or Lily, not Remus's parents, not the bloke at that second-hand bookshop in Soho Remus frequents - can vouch for him. No one knows where he goes, what he does.

Sirius doesn't even know what he thinks or feels these days, not even when their bodies are joined and they're One. He merges with a soul sewn up with secrets never to be told. Never to be thought on.

But Sirius does think on them.

He hasn't ever done well with secrets, because secrets walk arm-in-arm with lies and Sirius hasn't any time for keeping up appearances and deceit and sin.

All he has time for these days is fighting. Fighting for the Order, fighting against Voldemort's sodding Death Eaters, fighting the memory of the last time he'd seen Regulus alive - "I know what I'm doing." "So do it." Death sentence given by his own mouth to his flesh and blood. Fighting himself - mind versus heart versus every single sodding breath he takes because he does it, he does everything, for family. For James and Lily and Harry and Peter and Remus. Especially for Remus.

Oh, but how Sirius loves him.

It isn't enough, though. Love isn't fucking enough anymore. Not when lives are at stake and Sirius is responsible for them.

James, Lily, and Peter don't know what Sirius suspects about Remus, but soon enough they will.

As soon as Sirius himself can determine - bide decide finalise - what he fucking thinks, they will know.

He stands outside the flat - Remus's and his - and looks at the barren, still trees framing the building. Void of life and full limb, hiding the promise of fresh starts and new beginnings. They remind Sirius of Remus, of how he longs to some day belong, to begin anew. Sirius never agreed with that sentiment of Remus's. Remus does belong. To him.

Or maybe he did.

Here and now, Remus could very well belong to someone else - Voldemort - or something else - the Death Eaters, Voldemort's sodding stupid cause.

Mistrust is a slippery slushy slope and Sirius hates that he's being forced to take this path, to be given the task of climbing this fucking hill, to be the one to right everything before it has the chance to be wronged.

Candlelight flickers in the window, flame calling beckoning urging Sirius inside, home, to him.

He ignores the summons and turns round to walk along the blackened concrete. There are cracks, deep and wide and far-reaching.

Sirius doesn't bother trying to avoid stepping on them. He'd rather break his mother's back than Remus's spirit, or James's and Lily's hearts.

Everything is too close right now.

Sirius needs to get away, to find a time and place to cope with this, with everything.

His own heart breaking and spirit shattering, he runs. Birds screech overhead, wind roars, and Sirius screams, falling apart from the inside out.

Time and a place. Anywhere.

He stops beneath an old oak tree, pounding at his chest, hatred and confusion washing over him. He hadn't helped Regulus, but maybe he could do something right this time, something he should have done from the fucking start.

Regulus.

Anywhere.

"Reg," he chokes.

Then, he Apparates.


xviii.

"Get out." His voice is low and brittlesharp, skin burning crackling practically peeling from the blood boiling below it. "Now."

"You're being positively incorrigible, Sirius," Remus says in that calm 'let us all be rational' voice that really fucking hacks Sirius off.

Like now.

"Oh ho, isn't THAT rich? Pot calling the kettle Black, eh?" He is pacing now, hands at his side, the wand hand absolutely itching to pull out the wand and hex something. Maybe everything.

"If you would only calm down, I can explain--"

"Explain?" Sirius explodes, every last bit of him stretched to the limit, stretched so far that he comes apart and out and lost. "There isn't anything TO explain! Fuck, Remus, quitcher yammering. I'm not fucking DAFT, all right? It's just like before, isn't it? ISN'T IT? I goddamned saw you. I. Saw. You." He points to the door, his finger hand arm trembling with rage - rage peppered with disappointment and melancholy and the hollowness of betrayal.

"You don't know what it was you saw, Sirius," Remus says slowly, ducking his chin slightly. Fuck, but Sirius hates it when he does that. Remus looks all thoughtful and conflicted and careful when he does that, and Sirius can't ever resist that look, resist wanting to go to Remus, to hold him, to make sure everything's all right.

He can't ever resist it, so he doesn't even try.

"Christ, Moony," he says, standing in front of Remus, staring down at him. He blinks, Remus lifts his gaze to meet his own, and Sirius feels so damned weak, like he's drowning and there isn't anything to hold onto, to help him.

"Narcissa wasn't..." Remus frowns, his voice trailing off. "You believed me before, didn't you?"

Sirius nods. He did. He'd believed Remus the last time, though part of him always wondered what if - 'What ifs' could drive a good man bad, couldn't they? - what if it'd been true all along? What if--

"You believed me then," says Remus quietly, fingers curling round one of Sirius's wrists, bringing it to press against his cock. "Believe me now."

He's hard under Sirius's hand and Sirius jerks away. He hadn't wanted that, hadn't needed it because he'd been so caught up in her and Remus and what he'd seen, but touching him is like fire and ice all at once and it wakes Sirius up inside.

Grunting and damn near overwhelmed with this lust need take that's sprung up out of nowhere, Sirius undoes the button and zip of his fly, shoves his trousers and pants down, and hauls Remus down to the floor with him. "Believe," he gasps, yanking Remus's bottoms down before rolling him over on all fours. There's an ugly thud thud thudthud as Remus's knees and palms hit the boards but Sirius doesn't care. He needs. Placing an arm round Remus' middle, Sirius pulls him up onto his fours, then he's spitting slicking readying his palms and fingers and it's all so damned rough.

It's rough - fingers in just enough to stretch and scrape along the membrane before they're removed and Sirius is entering him, hard and fast and deep - and quick and silent. No sounds save for skin slapping against skin, a few sharp intakes of breath, and then someone's choking, groaning as they rut rut fuck. Sirius is so spent from the row, from trying to believe, from thoughts feeling shagging that he comes and collapses on top of Remus.

He isn't sure what time it is when he wakes, but it's all right. Time means nothing when Remus is there and he is beneath him, their bodies still joined as though they were meant to be that way always.

Maybe they are.

In this room, in this flat, it's just the two of them living, struggling, and letting things be.

He's never been much of a believer in anything, but Sirius has always believed in Remus.

Maybe it's time he starts believing in them as well.